


Day Thirty One

by walkerofthestars



Series: Whumptober 2020 [31]
Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Dick Grayson is Robin, Lazarus Pits, Today's Special: Torture, Torture, Whumptober 2020, experiment whipped left for dead, water boarding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:42:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28215672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/walkerofthestars/pseuds/walkerofthestars
Summary: Whumptober 2020Today's special: tortureExperiment, whipped, left for deadIt was times like these that Dick was reminded that there was, well and truly, no such thing as God. Or God’s plan. The mere notion made no sense, it was impossible.After all, what had he done to deserve this?
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Slade Wilson
Series: Whumptober 2020 [31]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2055567
Comments: 3
Kudos: 48





	Day Thirty One

It was times like these that Dick was reminded that there was, well and truly, no such thing as God. Or God’s plan. The mere notion made no sense, it was impossible.

After all, what had he done to deserve this?

His wrists were all that kept him upright, hanging from the ceiling, the cold handcuffs digging into his skin. Every time he lurched away from a blade or spasmed as electricity ran through him, felt like he was growing closer to breaking every bone in his hand. Maybe they’d just fall off, god knows that’d hurt less than everything else he was being put through.

He sobbed, trying to keep it down, gritting his teeth and clenching his jaw, but the sound made it past his lips. He wasn’t wearing a mask, tears had started flowing freely down his cheeks a long time ago, now there was none left. So what was dripping down his face?

It ran down the side of his nose, hot and sticky. Oh, it was blood. Well isn’t that nice.

Everything was ringing, sound felt far away, like his head was underwater. Maybe it was, maybe they had taken him down from the chains and started dunking his head in a bucket, he wouldn’t put it past them. He breathed in, the sobs making his whole body shiver, not under water then. Just feeling like it.

Slade gripped his face, his eyes were looking at him but seeing nothing.

He seemed to be looking for something. Maybe a sign that he was dying, Robin was sure there were plenty there. whatever he was looking for he didn’t find, he dropped Robin’s head, storming to the side of the room.

Robin. Why was he still referring to himself as that?

He hadn’t been Robin in a long time.

He’d died several times since he’d ever been _Robin_ , waking up in the pits gasping for breath. In fact, Slade had told him there was someone else going by the title a while ago. Dick wasn’t sure of how much time had passed, maybe the newbie had filled his spot for going on a year now, maybe two.

Robin wasn’t supposed to sob and bed for mercy. He’d done that plenty times now. But everything hurt, Robin wasn’t supposed to get caught, tortured, left for dead. He was supposed to be better than that. Robin probably didn’t understand, everything hurt so god damn much, Dick just wanted it to stop. but asking wouldn’t make that happen. Slade wasn’t interrogating him, the only reason for this was to beat him into submission.

What had he done again? Refused to kill. They’d forced him on a mission and he’d refused to kill the target. Right, yes, that’s usually what got him stuck in here, begging for things to end. Wishing that, when they let him die, they’d just leave him that way. But every time he woke up in the pits. Every time they started again.

Maybe it wasn’t worth it. he wasn’t Robin anymore, Batman thought he was dead. Hell, everyone did. He wasn’t Robin. Dick Grayson was dead. Who was he? He had no idea. He was no one. No one didn’t have a rule against killing. What was stopping him? some final grip to his old life? He would never be able to return to that, never. And even if he could, they wouldn’t want him.

The handcuffs clicked open, he fell to the ground, a sack of muscle and bone and blood, slowly spilling out, he made no move to get up. He was winded just from falling, he tried to catch his breath.

Slade grabbed him by the forearm and dragged him over to a chair. That was new. Usually they just carved him up till he died, hanging off the cuffs like a piece of meat in a cold-room.

Dick had nothing left in him, he could barely breathe. He was shivering, from cold and the effects of electricity and probably shock. There wasn’t a piece of skin that wasn’t stained red or split open. His bones had probably turned to dust in some places, he thought he could remember being beaten with some kind of blunt object repeatedly. Or maybe that was a memory from a different death day.

Either way, Slade cuffed him to the chair with absolutely no fight. the most Dick did was shake, hunched over, trying to catch his breath, wincing and flinching, whimpering whenever Slade moved. The chair was irritating his wounds, his back screamed as it was forced to lean against the wood. His skin was in ribbons, he could still feel the whip crashing on him, raking his back apart.

There was another drop of blood sliding down his face. It was seeping into his eyes, he tried to blink it away to no avail. He was fresh out of tears, the most he could do was close his eyes, screw them shut, the blood sticky and turning his sight red.

Slade grabbed his head, pulling it back. before Dick could wonder why a towel was shoved over his face.

Oh no.

Water fell on him, he was already cold and now everything was worse. His wounds stung, screaming and feeling like they were on fire- was there salt in the water?

He wouldn’t breath in, but he could taste it. salty. Some got in his eyes and mingled with the blood, stinging worse now but at least he could see the towel covering his face, yippee.

He held his breath, shaking in the chair. Maybe he could-

He screamed, fighting the restraints as electricity coursed through him. the water made it all the worse. He couldn’t breathe but his lungs refused to stop letting out air, his throat ached, blood was dripping from his lips and onto the towel. The electricity stopped and his screams devolved into sobs. Slade dropped another bucket of water on him.

He didn’t have time to stop sobbing, water ran down his throat, his nose, his lungs stinging and aching and burning. He choked, trying to stop himself from breathing in but his body disobeyed him, his shoulders lurched as he breathed in again, choking on water.

He needed to breathe, he needed air. He fought the restraints, twitching and pulling, but they were strong, he couldn’t move, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t move, he couldn’t-

His wrist broke. He screamed. Water landed on him once more, roaring in his ears as it landed on his shoulders. He choked and this time as the water made its way into his lungs he threw up. Another bucket of water crashed onto him again.

He was sobbing, he gave up, he was going to die once more, there was nothing he could do to stop that. Every breath shoved more water into his lungs, he wasn’t getting any air, his head hurt his body turned to stones, he couldn’t move, breathe, speak. He just sobbed, waiting for this to end.

Once more the water crashed down on him and he tensed as more and more water filled his lungs.

This time once he settled down, no longer fighting the restraints, the towel was removed. He coughed, sobs still trying to bubble up, but his lungs gulped down real air greedily. He didn’t know if it was possible, but it felt like he could feel the water sloshing around in his lungs, his chest rattled with every intake of breath.

And he still wasn’t dead.

Maybe all these dips in the Lazarus pits were taking their toll. Maybe he was starting to get harder to kill. The only thought he had in response to that was ‘please let me be wrong’ because he just wanted this to end. He didn’t want to be difficult to kill. He wanted to keel over right then and there.

He wanted to change his mind. he was being punished for not killing. Give him a gun right now, point and order, he’d shoot, he didn’t care, just _let him die._

He couldn’t say it, not because he was scared or because he was clinging to the final dregs of his integrity. But because the only thing his mouth could do anymore was breathe and sob. Words didn’t make sense, they weren’t stringing together in his mind like they should.

But Slade kept going. Dick didn’t know how much longer he spent in that room, barely able to breathe or scream or flinch. Hours, days, seconds. He didn’t know. All he knew is that somehow Slade found unmarked places, skin that wasn’t bleeding yet, bones that weren’t broken.

By the time he was done Dick was sure that not even the Lazarus pits could bring him back.

He was left in the empty room. Dark, silent, nothingness. Every breath was harder than the last, every movement made him sob more. His arms and legs were bent wrong, he was bleeding out. The foam beneath him was soaked, surely, the steel mesh covering was slick with blood. How did he still have blood in him? how was there any left?

Eventually he couldn’t even sob. Couldn’t even cry. He stared unseeing into the darkness, skin prickling with injuries, every spot covered in red. His eyes were filled with blood trickling from wounds, he had no tears left, the blood seemed to be standing in. his nails were cracked, gone on some of his fingers, not even the tips of his toes were without pain.

He just wanted it to stop.

But it took so long.

He was bleeding out, his lungs full of water, his heart beating slower and slower each time.

Until he took his last breath, struggling with it as he had all of them. It didn’t feel like oxygen was making it into his lungs anymore, it felt like it hit the back of his throat and then disappeared.

Everything went numb. His feet first and his hands. He would have sighed in relief if he could. He was dying, his brain was shutting things off.

He couldn’t feel anything below his waist, his arms wouldn’t move. He’d closed his eyes already, unable to see anything when they were open anyway. He could hear his heartbeat in his ears, so slow.

He tried to breathe in, he choked on nothing, his lungs refused, his heart petered out. The air wouldn’t go in but his body refused to stop trying.

Until eventually everything went black, and he tasted sweet death once more.

It was short lived.

He woke up in the pits, floating in green nothingness. He couldn’t hear anything but the sound of water moving. It was calming. He wanted to stay down there forever. Be swept in the current of the Lazarus pits, did they lead anywhere? He’d find out.

His lungs wanted oxygen. He didn’t stop the instinct to breathe in, letting his chest fill with Lazarus. He didn’t care, it’d heal him in a moment anyway. He flinched slightly as his body turned cold, liquid filling his lungs, but that was the only reaction he gave. On the second breath he didn’t move at all.

This was nice. He liked this. He could live like this forever.

It was quiet and it was the closest thing to death he felt, other than actually dying. He thought for a moment he could feel his mother hugging him, his father ruffling his hair. He could join them.

Except he couldn’t. he’d been dead a few times now. The only time he’d ‘joined’ his parents was when he hallucinated it two seconds before waking up in the pits.

he’d floated to the bottom, body heavy, eyes closed. He wanted to stay here. There were rocks beneath him and they almost felt comfortable.

He didn’t know if it was instinct or the effects of the pits, but he found himself kicking off the ground and swimming up, at an angle so the ground stayed beneath him, when he could see the surface he broke, moving further forward to get his feet under him, coughing as air hit his lungs. There was no Lazarus in them anymore, it was gone.

He stumbled forward in the current, the green tinged liquid down by his knees. He fell forwards, his body was so tired. So tired. He could feel the ghost of the pain he’d experienced.

But as soon as he got used to the air, as soon as he was out, the anger swept up.

He knew it wasn’t real, he didn’t feel this way. But in the moment he was angry at everyone, everything.

Someone grabbed him by the hair, pulling him up and out all the way. He was dripping with Lazarus, if he had a mirror his eyes would likely look back at him in a sickening green.

Ra’s stood before him, leaning on his cane. Slade held him up by the forearm.

“are you ready to finish the mission?” Ra’s asked.

He stepped to the side, revealing a man kneeling, hands restrained behind his back. he was staring in fear at everything, gagged.

Dick looked at him, and for a moment the stranger was the target of everything he’d ever hated.

He was Bruce, who let him die.

He was the justice league, who hadn’t saved him.

He was Savage, who had thought up this plan to turn Dick into a weapon.

He was Ra’s, who stood before him every time he was brought out of the pits.

He was Slade, who was always the one that killed him.

And he was himself, who hadn’t escaped yet, who was utterly useless, who was at the hands of the enemy, who had begged and cried and screamed and pleaded.

He was weak.

And he hated him.

Slade let go of him, knowing he had gained his balance and could stand on his own. He handed him a dagger, the one Dick had held on the mission, had refused to use.

The mission he’d failed. That failure had caused him his weakness.

Failure was unacceptable. Failure made him weak.

Dick took the dagger, staring at it. it was weighted perfectly, a beautiful piece of weaponry, sharpened to a point that would make carving into skin effortless.

He looked at the stranger.

He refused to be weak ever again.

He drove the dagger into his chest.

He was strong.

The stranger bled out in front of him, crying and screaming and sobbing.

Dick refused to be like that ever again.


End file.
